gzip and bzip2 can only compress single files, however, so a program like tar is used to merge the files/folders into one file, hence the 'TAR' section of the name. The 'GZ' or 'BZ2' section refers to the fact the compression method is gzip or bzip2. TAR.GZ and TAR.BZ2 files are compressed archives originating from GNU/Linux. The 7-Zip program includes support for RAR 3.0, but the RAR component is proprietary. If RAR 3.0 is needed, taking a newer CVS snapshot may work, which has been done for the unrar-free Debian and Ubuntu packages.

The free software (as in freedom) unrar can unpack RAR files that do not use RAR 3.0 or later. WinRAR is the original tool for RAR, available for many platforms, WinRAR has a trial period BUT the trial period never ends so you can have the software forever for free. RAR files are compressed using a proprietary format. Most (if not all) GNU/Linux distributions include Info-ZIP, which can be used to decompress ZIP files, along with a GUI frontend, such as File Roller for GNOME and Ark for KDE.

ZIP files can be extracted easily in Windows and GNU/Linux with the utilities included with your OS. 2 Copying the plugin to the GIMP plugin directoryĮxtracting plugin packages Īlmost every plugin you download will come in a package.It would be great to be able to throw a bunch of PNG files in a directory and have a program auto-composite them, maybe using filenames for Z-ordering.

Also it would be great if GIMP could output ImageMagick code for combining layers in a way that approximates GIMP’s compositions- possibly in the comment metadata. My main problem with it is there is no “save all” functionality, nor is there a “save layers to separate PNG files” type dealie, nor automated. Some do, like Firefux.) It seems it doesn’t exist anymore, though. I think pasted layers would only have an alpha defined if they were cut/copied with alpha (some viewers and browsers don’t have that ability, like Irfanview. In a previous version of GIMP, there was some option to auto-add alpha to any non color-indexed images coming in via ‘open file’. I put in ‘A’, possibly reassigning something else. Search for “alpha”, it will be your first hit “layers-alpha-add”. Goto Edit/Keyboard Shortcuts, a Window will open.

I should add my fave method, which is approx 1 second faster than the others. Thanks Thomas, and BTW: nice site you got here.

Gimp2